Iain Duncan Smith Plans Food Stamps Scheme For Disabled Parents

Iain Duncan Smith is planning to introduce a food stamps style scheme aimed at the poorest families who he accuses of wasting all their benefits on drugs and alcohol. Disabled parents or those with a mental health condition on the lowest incomes, are likely to be the first targets of the scheme.

The criteria for being a troubled family have nothing to do with a history of drug or alcohol abuse and are based solely on income, health, disability or educational background. Troubled families are those that meet five out of the following seven factors: a low income, no-one in the family in work, living in poor housing, parents with no qualifications, a mother who has a mental health problem, one parent with a long-standing illness or disability,or the family is unable to afford basics, such as food and clothes.

It is telling that four of these criteria mean essentially the same thing. That the family is poor. Add a mental health condition or long standing disability to this and the family will be placed on the new smart card scheme.

This will be devastating for low income families as well as the local small businesses they use. No longer will the poorest families be able to use street markets or second hand shops to shop around for vital items. It will no doubt be the likes of Tesco, Argos and Poundland, or expensive local shops who are part of the paypoint network, who are the ‘approved’ shops for the poor.

Disabled people who are not lucky enough to have a local shop affiliated with the scheme may be forced to make expensive and arduous journeys on public transport to the nearest ‘approved’ shop. Those with dietary needs, whether for health, religious or ethical reasons, may no longer be able to buy food locally at all. Children will see the occasional little treat disappear whilst a birthday visit to the cinema or funfair will no longer be possible. Instead they will be forced to watch their parents humiliated at the check-out as overworked shop assistants assess whether they are allowed to buy what’s in their trolly.

A similar supermarket voucher scheme was abandoned for Asylum Seekers in 2002* due to the stigmatising impact of the regime, which Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes called: “degrading, discriminatory and impractical”. The same MP is now part of a government planning a similar scheme for UK citizens.

Those who do spend benefits on alcohol or drugs are unlikely to be affected, unless they also fall into the criteria for being ‘troubled’. Those who are caught up in the new scheme will simply trade in goods such as razors and batteries, sell their smart card allocations to others, or resort to begging and stealing. Many small shops who do manage to qualify for the scheme will no doubt still accept the smart cards for fags and booze anyway, although perhaps at a premium. Illicit money changing schemes, under which cards are swiped for cash payments minus a cut, will be inevitable.

The supermarket voucher scheme for asylum seekers was launched by Jack Straw after ten years of press demonisation of those who had fled their homelands and become refugees. It was thought that fake asylum seekers were flooding the UK because of the overly ‘generous’ benefits system – which in fact is one of the most miserly in Europe. Supermarket vouchers did nothing to slow the numbers entering the UK. The next step for asylum seekers was detention centres.

A similar smear campaign has been taking place recently aimed at ‘benefit scroungers’. So successful has it been that the Tory Party talked of little else at their party conference. With the Government fast becoming a laughing stock, ever more draconian policies are likely to be dreamed up in an effort to placate the Daily Mail hate mob.

Should Iain Duncan Smith’s brutal smart card scheme emerge in reality – and a change in the law will be necessary first – then they are unlikely to stay confined to so called ‘troubled’ families. Already smart cards have been floated as an idea for everyone on benefits. For those on the lowest incomes free-market capitalism will be anything but free. The Government will choose what you buy and where you buy it. Nanny knows best and Nanny says you have to shop at Tesco.

*those who have been refused asylum can now be forced to depend on supermarket vouchers whilst they are awaiting deportation, if they are pregnant or to ill to leave or are launching a judicial review against their asylum decision.

Once they have extended the food stamp scheme to all benefit claimants, they will probably put gas and electricity credits on the food stamp cards too – “the out of work should be given just enough gas to heat their water for a bath or shower and just enough electricity to power their kettles to prepare their pot noodle dinners and no more. No electricity will be issued to power lights in the evenings. If they won’t work and want to leech off the hard work of others, they will have to go straight to bed in the evenings after they have finished their meals, so that they can be properly rested for searching for jobs the next day and contributing something back to their communities (workfare)”.

are you for real? i think this country’s government needs to grow a spine and stop giiving hand outs and houses that are extreme short supply to immigrants, and should addopt same principals as australia to financially support themselves and live as christians, (when in rome). I unfortunately am single parent on benefits, but most adulthood always worked and paid taxes, but i now suffer with mental illness and poor health, with asthma although damp flat with 2 boys dont help. so realistically how long do you think it will be before social services take my children off me if i were to give them pot noodles for dinner? hardly a balanced diet is it! oh then their health would suffer also for living in damp flat with no heating – get a grip were not all drug taking alcoholics, though it would be good to have money to then i could heat, clothe and feed my kids without the worry of getting into debt!!!!!!!

R33 was being ironical, Kristina. Obviously something that passes you. Maybe because you’re too busy swallowing the bigotry from whatever Daily Hate Rag that has fed your head with twaddle about immigrants and drug addicts. The government’s divide and rule tactics appear to have worked perfectly on you. Don’t fight other victims of this heinous government. Unite against the real fraudsters, the obscene multi-millionaires who are running the world and leaving the other 99% to rot in hell.

Welfare for tesco. The financialisation of welfare. Market driven social policy development, and how it looks in the bits of social policy voters dont care about. An entire welfare dependent working class. Bingo.

So presumably there would be vouchers for approved tampons/sanitary towels [difficult if you need to use non-bleached ones because of a health condition]. Would it also cover saline/contact lens solutions/tissues for people with MEDICAL contacts lens [prescribed by eye hospitals] as these have already been taken off NHS prescriptions. How about the more expensive razors for women whose skin cannot tolerate the Bic. I’m guessing there wouldn’t be haircut vouchers or maybe a community pudding bowl? Birthday/xmas voucher for kids with approved presents?
So having a mental health problem identifies you as a feckless ‘dreg’ then? Will mental health services be obliged to identify all their unemployed dreg patients? The right have long wanted all benefit recipients on food stamps but basic food alone does not cover what it means to be human and live which requires disposable income.

Good questions. My guess is you’re right, they will expect you to cut your own hair with a pudding bowl, razors they will consider a luxury, so women on benefits will have to go around as hairy as a 70s porn star and birthday and xmas presents they will consider a luxury. They will believe that seeing your children go without any presents for their birthdays and at xmas will be a good incentive and motivation to “get off your backside, find a job and stop leeching off the hardworking taxpayer”.

They will say “charity will provide the needy with birthday and xmas presents” so you’ll have to beg at a charity to get any. If you need new clothes, they will send a welfare officer around to your house to check your wardrobe to confirm you need them and will issue you with orange Guantanamo Bay style boiler suits emblazoned with “Welfare Recipient” logos.

“So presumably there would be vouchers for approved tampons/sanitary towels [difficult if you need to use non-bleached ones because of a health condition]. Would it also cover saline/contact lens solutions/tissues for people with MEDICAL contacts lens [prescribed by eye hospitals] as these have already been taken off NHS prescriptions”.

They will probably be referred to Atos where they will be found fully fit without any medical conditions and therefore not in need of any special provisions.

Also most of my clothes and kitchenware now came from charity shops,
I shop in ethnic shops (usually cheaper if buy in bulk, I always wait until end of day on market day to get the cheapest. If I had to rely on approved outlets and pay full prices: my groceries, clothing expenditure would more than double easily

What a stupid Idea how the hell do you pay direct debits with food stamps? who do they think they are to tell you how much money I spend in a supermarket? how do they know what you need for bills? or if I want to use my money to replace a mattress one week that has surely got to be against your human rights?
I would be happier if they used a system similar to Australia whereby if you need something you can start paying for things but you don’t get them till you’ve paid it in full that would be helpful !

One of the few things about Aus that I missed when moving back here was Lay-By Want to buy non-perishables but don’t have the money just yet? Go and select them, speak to the right staff members, sign a form and pay a deposit, they put your items aside for you, then you can pay as much or as little as you like, whenever you like usually, until you’ve paid the full amount (plus a small admin charge) and can then take your goods away – there’s usually a 12 month maximum duration of the agreement. Excellent for large items and Xmas present buying. And means you’re not piling debt on yourself.

As a parent who’s family could fall into the ‘troubled’ category (2 members awaiting assessment for mental health conditions), we already buy from the market for most things. If we weren’t allowed we’d eat poorly, the kids wouldn’t get shoes, where would I buy wool to make blankets we use instead of heating? Where would I buy the things my oldest uses to do her artwork? I did all my xmas shopping at charity shops last year ffs! And how would I buy school uniforms? In the welfare reform bill it does say we can be given all or part of an award in vouchers. Does that extend to ‘smart cards’?

I always understood the various ‘Truck Acts’ outlawed payment in anything other than coin of the realm.

It could also create an interesting situation for those sanctioned. Are they going to actually withdraw food stamps? The consequences of admitting to such a policy could be politically damaging. This policy is very much a double edged sword.

I suspect the rise of electronic banking trashed that with the virtualisation of money. I don’t see hard cash from one month’s end to another, just online statements and transactions via plastic, also online. I doubt I’m unique.

You know I absolutely detest the Tories and Duncan-Smith in particular, but what hard evidence is there for this story? If it is true, yes, it is scandalous; if it is merely speculation this is worse than scandalous as it will frighten those who are most vulnerable.
Please provide evidence that this is not merely another attention-seeking blog post which will unnecessarily strike fear into those who are already reeling from being the target of indiscriminate persecution.

IDS is a stinking, lying twat. I mean stating at his parties conference and informing his numpty followers that Labour were opposing Universal Credit, when it was the labour party’s policy to begin with, and Millipede fully intends to continue the same shit if we give him the chance. I mean – even a pleb like me knows that! Call’s himself a Christian. Perhaps, this arch hypocrite, should wank over ‘thou shalt not lie’ ‘thou shalt not steal’ … and Jesus shalt say to him ‘You call me Lord, Lord, yet I knows you not!’

Fuck this nazi bastard. I just lost my temper. Screw the whole damn lot of them.

No one in this country should ever vote again. Then what would they do?

I cannot believe that this idea has even been given head space. For a start it is discriminatory in respect of mental health this must be a clear breach of The. Human Rights Act on several counts however article 8 states respect for family life and this clearly flies in the face of that right! Secondly for a country that pretends to give freedom of choice to individuals how can the Government decide where people should shop and what they spend their money on? If there are families where the bulk of the income is being spent on drink and or drugs and there are children surely there are enough powers under the various childrens acts to allow social services to place children on child protection registers or to remove those at risk of severe feckless neglect ?

He says he is a Christian:
He is a liar
He is a thief (stealing B liars wondrous ideas) and then lies, saying they are his own.
He is a killer, allowing a poor, innocent refugee child to die of starvation…
Many more to come if it carries on…
Moses is turning in his grave

Maybe the supermarket checkouts can stop using cards for booze and tobacco, as the new tills recognise all purchases with age restrictions. Perhaps it could prevent the card payment for this stuff, unless it’s tablets and so on, which would need a supervisor to over-ride. I just hope that card forgers won’t consider this as yet another way to pinch our money!

We are going to see a big increase in cases of malnutrition in this country and other illnesses due to inadequate nutrition, but since they are privatising the NHS, people on benefits won’t be able to afford the treatment they need, so they will be left in agony. Due to lack of proper food, “benefit scroungers” will be too weak to do their “work experience” and may pass out on their placements, which will lead to them being promptly sanctioned by having their food rations cut for “pretending to be sick to avoid working”.

The telegraph article you claim to have sourced this information states HE IS AGAINST USA STYLE FOOD STAMPS and only wants to stop money meant to ensure children have food to eat and clothing to wear being spent on cigarettes and alcohol… I have no issue with that as I have seen this first hand in the work I do as a social worker in deprived areas

The article suggests the issuing of a card style system, where such products will be barred from payments… whether it will work effectively is down to a review the DWP are undertaking. I’m not in favour of the state taking over people’s decisions BUT and it’s a big but, if the children in the 120,000 identified ‘problem’ families will be assisted I would support it as its money for the children apparently PROVEN within these families as being spent on adult luxuries to the detriment of the children.

I get your point and agree with you, seems they are saying if your using other people’s earnings (ie taxes) to live on they expect far better than those using their own earnings… as you suggest I’m sure they’re are many families not on benefits where the children may not be the priority in terms of spending.

I’ve heard that more than half of British households make no contribution to the State, that is-, the benefits they receive outweigh their tax payments .
It seems that most people are in receipt of benefits, thus subject to any scheme the government decides to implement upon them

but everyone pays tax, as I understand it some benefits are even taxed. Everyone contributes to the funding of the NHS – I don’t especially want to fund the patients who are the biggest drain – smoking related diseases because that’s entirely preventable but I refuse to pick and choose who would get treated and who wouldn’t

–The charge card model is based on a “basics card” scheme which started to be rolled out for thousands of people in Australia in August this year.
Instead of being given cash or cheques, claimants are now issued with electronic “credit” cards to purchase key “priority” items at approved stores across the country. —

Stuart Maskill : Don’t be pedantic. What ever you call it, however its delivered its still food stamp pecuniary enforcement: just done in a modern electronic way that cannot be traded as with USA style food Stamps.

Stuart Maskill, Iain Disgusting Smith is a pathological liar. His word is worthless. He cares nothing about vulnerable children, he despises them and intends to completely destroy them and their parents.

They always implement these brutal schemes using fake concern and a smokescreen of lies to hide their true intentions. They start of implementing a more moderate part of the scheme against a popular target, then they extend it to other groups and then they roll out the more punitive and brutal parts of the scheme, in this case – USA style food stamps.

This might seem like an odd question, but what about pets and vet’s bills? Having a family pet is important, especially for children. Will the expenses of having a pet be covered by this? Or will children suffer the heartbreak and indignity of having to give their beloved pet away?

Good point. I was going to mention that in my comment but I got side tracked. It would be appalling if people were convicted of animal cruelty because they wouldn’t actually be allowed to look after their animals!

what an utter prick this man is….so if you want cheaper stuff from pound shops ect , or charity shops, no doubt the big supermarket chains will make a packet out of this, just as they have from all the slave labour provided by these nazi’s in gvt….so gvt are now punishing people , treating them like criminals for having a disabled child…roll on a revolution, riots here they come, and when they do THIS GVT SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.

the problem is everyone has seen how they treat rioters disproportionately to anyone else convicted of similar offense’s so this might mean 2 things, Either people won’t revolt in fear of going to prison/losing home etc, or, it will up the ante and mean we see weapons in Jobcentres or suicide bombers – if people have nothing to lose and have lost everything anyhow and know that the ballot paper makes no difference it could get really serious. Individual suicides [which don’t harm others] mean nothing to them, I can foresee a future where a mass suicide occurs to make it harder to ignore

The guy I buy my veg from at the market doesn’t have a card machine, neither does the charity shop where I buy clothes, books, toys and other much needed household items. The farmer I get my eggs and meat from (when I can afford meat) doesn’t have a card machine in his barn. I don’t drink or smoke and my husband has switched to electronic cigarettes (healthier and MUCH cheaper), he has even given up the £10,000 a year medication he was on because of side effects. Yet we would be treated WORSE than druggies. We are at our wits end with this country. It used to be a decent country to live in. Now my husband gets sworn at in the street, thugs try to tip him out of his wheelchair to ‘prove’ that he’s disabled.

It would be a good idea in principle – if flexibility was maintained on where and how people can spend them. One of the things which I found while on New Deal was that there were young people who just claimed Job Seekers because they didn’t want to work and seemed to use it as pocket money for mobile phones, computer games, going to the pub and the like. So I can see how something like this would put off a small number of people from claiming it and who have no intention of working. But on the other hand, children of poor families shouldn’t be penalized because their parents are poor or ill and denied some of the things that their better off school mates get, and people should still be allowed to shop where they want. I for one, do not shop at Tesco or Asda because I don’t like what they stand for. Would independent and small businesses be able to sell their goods to people using these stamps? If not, that could be a threat to their business, espeaically in rural areas. From a child’s point of view you also have to take into account other things that they need like educational materials such as books, etc. Would their parents still be able to get them things like that? Even if you are unemployed, you still deserve to treat yourself occasionally, and if mass unemployment is going to continue, and people can’t buy things other than food, I can see other businesses being effected as well and the government really has no right to dictate to people how they should live, which is what it is going to do. No doubt companies like Tesco and Asda will get fat off it because it means that people can’t spend their money with their smaller competitors and you can guarantee that it wouldn’t be implemented in a sensible manner with the Tories involved.

the only reason this country is in the mess its in is because of the poor how dare they be born, the only thing worse than a poor person is a poor person with a disability, learning disability or mental illness. well thats the tory thinking anyway ready for a revolution anyone cos if this mob get another term in office we may very have one.

Add to that all the paranoia about obesity, soon you will be only allowed food at government run restaurants. you get the daily mandated calorie content. and nothing more. Then they will ban unhealthy foods, smokers and drinkers are already going. Then it will be you have to justify your existence not be a burden on the state (thats the way its going now), or you will become a none person. with no rights (reduction of human rights happening now)

I think it’s shameful you’re choosing to worry disabled families like this, seeing as one of the top criteria for being designated as a troubled family (top as in I found it within 20 secs of Googling) is INVOLVEMENT IN ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR OR OTHER CRIMINAL ACTIVITY. All of the other indicators you mentioned are dependent on this key factor. It’s in reality highly unlikely that disabled parents will be picked up as troubled families any more than any other group, provided their kids aren’t tearing up the local neighbourhood. Without this element present the rest of your post is essentially wild alarmist supposition.

“‘I am looking at the moment at ways in which we could ensure that money we give [benefit claimants] to support their lives is not used to support a certain lifestyle,’ he said.

Asked about Australian use of smart cards, he added: ‘I am certainly looking at it – I am going through that in some detail. With the use of cards, we are looking at that to see if we can do something.”

Smart cards are being consulted on already to replace social fund payments in some areas. If IDS manages to get this through it is clear it is not just ‘troubled families’ he has his eye on.

“If IDS manages to get this through it is clear it is not just ‘troubled families’ he has his eye on.”

I also think that. I wonder if the smart cards will have “Trussell Trust” printed on them ?, only to be used at “Trussell Trust” foodbank outlets, staffed by workfare ? (did I really put a question mark there).

ids and present gvt…all this while all you lot get subsidised ffos and drink on the house of commons, what a bunch of evil horrors you lot are, and anyone else who agree’s with this, greed and power caused all this mess not the people on the street, MAY ALL GVT.AND ANY OTHER WHO AGREES WITH THIS ROTT IN HELL………………….

I will personally boycott every shop that takes part – Iam not going to contribute to this viscious and humiliating scheme – MPs get £8,500,000 a year to subsidise their alcohol and food they should give it to food pantries

i wonder if any off the people who are bad mouthing others on benefits have ever actually had to live of them you are so judgemental, I’m on benefits I’m a single mum with 3 children and before you say why did you have your kids on benefits .. i didn’t i was with my ex partner for 12 years we both worked and he changed became an alcoholic and beat me and i eventually left and ended up on benefits and i have been for a while now,. i send out 50 spec letters/cv a week and i get no job offers and i do have qualifications, there are not jobs for every person in this country. you people don’t have an idea unless you have actually lived it. you disgust me with your hatred of the poor can tell your tory voters because that party would like the poor to just all die like rats as that’s what they see the poor as. so it ok to let the rich off higher taxes which they can afford so the poor suffer. oh and most people i know hardly ever have a drink n defiantly don’t do drugs.. the Tories love to stereotype and the upper middle classes and so on lap that image up even tho it is not a true image! i hope that some you are against people on benefits lose your jobs and end on benefits so you can actually see what it like and then us poor can have your jobs!

I’m disabled & classed as poor don’t drink or do drugs, married with 3 children.

Not only would this be humiliating for me when I go shopping it would be humiliating for my children who woud refuse to go shopping for me if a card scheme is introduced out of pride.

This would affect me badly as I shop in lots of different shops, some places sell branded food at lower prices etc, I rely on my children to help and I know they be to ashamed to do it.

This card scheme is against our civil rights, it is not for the whole of the Uk to know I am poor and my children come from a poor family, is that what he wants to humiliate us and stigmatise the poorest children.

I have done nothing wrong and again feel its against my civil rights to be told where I have to shop and what I can buy, I thought we lived in a free country, when did it become COMMUNIST !

Just because there are ‘some’ fake claiments or lazy people that won’t work doesn’t give the Govt the right to tar us all with the same brush.

I can imagine the added stress for disabled people being humilated in ‘chosen’ shops will become more ill, more sick because I’d rather starve than be told where I can shop, what I can buy, how much I can spend.

I’m a good, honest person who worked fulltime till I was struck down with disability, my husband worked his whole life until he had to become my carer.

My 2 teenagers are in college, one is going to univercity next year. The youngest is in a good high school. They are not troublesome children and as parents we educate them on morals and values.

Yet he plans on making sure that everyone knows I’m on benefits – the amount of psychological stress and damage that man will cause with this scheme.

The amount of teenagers fighting will rise as those not on a card scheme will as teenagers do, use that fact as a weapon to bully the children of the parents on benefits. Forcing the children whose parents who are to defend themselves/families.

Most of these kids struggle already as they can’t have the same things as other children, expensive clothes, holidays, treats but now on top of already not having anything, we will have less. The poor divide will get much bigger and be a lot more apparent – I would put a bet on that crime in poor areas ie: shoplifting would soar.

My bills are paid, my family fed & clothed I live within our means with the money I get.

Right, so where is the money going to come from to pay for the Internet in order to be in the position to access Universal Credit online? Will that be allowed on these “cards for the sick and unemployed” or will the people have to sort that out themselves regardless of whether they are really able to do that or not?

I am very protective of my privacy and refuse to have any type of facebook or twitter account. I have an email account and that’s that. I will NOT be forced to risk my privacy being compromised. So you IDS can screw your “Universal Credit”!

IDS will be pleased to hear you say that – thats exactly the sentiment he wants and why designed the Universal Credit to be this way. Make it so fucking difficult to claim it, and either they will get sanctioned in the first week or so for not meeting the “requirements” and claimant “commitment”, or like you, will say “stick your Universal Credit up your arse”.

Or will these people who are categorised as disabled (no in proper self-sufficient employment) and unemployed going to have to do the Universal Credit thing in public view at a Internet Cafe (cost of doing that) or local library. Where they have no privacy and each time they do that they are putting their financial security at risk…

IDS should have been replaced during the cabinet reshuffle, i know he was marked down for a different post but decided not to take the post so he could oversee his idiotic welfare reforms through so they could not be watered down… remember this is an ex failed tory leader. I wrongly thought when the PM decides to move members of his cabinet around, they have no choice.. clearly they do!.. i see democracy rules fine inside the party!. To be honest, it would be better if the Lib-Dems where on the opposite side of the house with labour, as it stands they are a compromised and toothless party in coalition.. bound and restricted. No more tactical voting guys, vote for who you really want.. this is what happens when you vote tactically or not at all, one day we may end up losing the vote!.. that may seem insane but would you have guessed how even the tories would behave in power?. Crazy idea’s for half-baked policies or many as raw as sushi!… let’s face it there are plenty of cold fish in this party.

I feel that this whole concept of food vouchers is just another step in the humiliation of the poor that IDS is waging on us at the moment – he wants to make the whole business off claiming benefits as unpleasant as possible, so that people will just sign off, or stop claiming benefits.
Someone mentioned about getting all claimants to wear bright orange prison jumpsuits earlier, and I thought I can see something similar to that coming as well – you know, how criminals on community service have to wear those bright yellow vests with “community payback” on them for all to see.
Knowing IDS, they will be bright pink jumpsuits for men with “Benefit Scrounger” in big writing on the backs, with elctronic tags inside them to make sure you wear them and they know exactly where you are at any time. Failure to wear them to go to Asda with your vouchers will render you liable to a 3 year benefit sanction.
Getting ridiculous – how will these vouchers pay for gas and electric if you have an online account that pays by direct debit?
People need to remember all this crap when they are attending the march in London next weekend.

They’ve not scrapped The Equality Act yet, so won’t that have something to say about discrimination regarding the delivery of goods and services? So, as a disabled person with agoraphobia it is surely discriminatory to make it even more difficult to shop for me rather than easier? Same for anyone who is sick/ill/disabled and has problems with travelling. So the whole fiasco us un-fucking-workable

why should people like us pay for scroungers to sit on there back sides all day and live in luxury with cupboards full of food and all the latest technology when people like me who as mental health problems still go to work and struggle every day to pay bills and even buy food. i say about time bring it on and put a stop to the bone idle.

Ur words are those of an ignorant person who is clumping everybody in receipt of benefits in the same boat.

There is a difference to being disabled and unable to work and being disabled and being able to work.

I hope one day ur in the position where ur disability makes you unable to work and it is you having to go through this.

I do not have luxory food items, nor live in luxory and worked full time until struck down with a debilitating disability that stopped me from working but also meant my husband who had also worked his whole life to give up work and become my carer.

You think I want to live like this ? I had dreams once I’d buy my own house, my kids would have everything we didn’t have as kids and until getting disabled my life was on track !

Well said, Constance. Lisa, stop lapping up what you read in the Daily Heil or The Scum or whatever non-paper you read. You are playing right into the government’s divide and rule strategy with all the regurgitated and made-up cliches. Why don’t you attack the real fraudsters, those at the top who don’t give a fuck about you and are playing with yours and all disabled people’s lives? Solidarity is what we need, not becoming one of the baying mob.

Who are “people like you” ? because these “people like you” should go and live in another country together and then you could all sit in your little perfect houses in your new born utopia and count all your loveley money every day, and say “Its MINE, all MINE”. Its the attitudes of “people like you” that got the country into this position in the first place by just thinking of themselves and to hell with everyone else. “People like you” include the bankers, Daily Mail readers, and other mindless morons who swallow all the poisonous propaganda emitted from the arses of this Tory Government.
Now jog on!

People like all the smarmy cunt Daily Heil “readers” driving their fucking hummers and gloating about how much their fucking buy-to-let “portfolio” was worth. And they expect to sit back and laugh as other people to suffer for for their greed and decadence as they enjoy another “latte” planning their next trip to Mekico, well, they can fuck right off.

lucky you, we cant all do that some of us have mental health problems and physical problems why the fuck should I as a law abiding citizen that has fallen on hard times have a government determine the shops i use and how I spend my money I have enough to deal with without this shit you ignorant bitch!

You dont “get” mental health problems do you I am not religious so that thought would never enter my head and my reply was very calm considering the anger her bigoted comments created I have had a stroke and have considerable brain damage but frankly i dont have to justify myself to you! so the fact I struggle with bad language and a nasty temper is not your concern! I dont like bigots I have no respect for the idiots that believe the lies and proper-gander the gov feed to the daily hell and the tory-graph if any of you are really that thick then I feel sorry for you!

That would be your response but to be fair your not us and we are not you. You don’t know us nor what we are going through so if someone wants to reply with anger as a way of expressing themselves then you have no right to judge them for the words they have used.

I have no compassion for Lisa Petitt ! Just the same as she showed no compassion for those of us on benefits !

Swings and rounabouts – you should never ever tell another person what they should and shouldn’t say !

Who’s fault is it you struggle every day to pay bills and even buy food? –Your taking it out on the wrong people, blaming, believing stupid propaganda and punishing people will not make your life better.

And you must have an idea how much it coats to keep even one room warm enough to sit around on ones backside all day And keeping the food cupboard full, keeping up with the latest technology is just not realistic on benefits

Sick of the likes of you, taking the poisonous bile the daily fail & the torygraph churn out endlessly as fact. As a claimant & carer for my daughter with ASD,looking around my shabby living room I can’t help wondering where this “luxury” lifestyle I’m supposed to have is? No plasma telly or leather suite here & my kitchen cupboards are hardly overflowing. So get your facts right before spouting your ignorant opinions, You claim to have a mental health problem, may I suggest the reason you have one is that you’re a tory!

Lisa, I would like to know if you have experienced debilitating depression, schizophrenia / bi polar , that left you mentally incapable to work with the general public. Because most jobs are in the service industry in this country. you would be sacked from a job. You would be fortunate to get ESA and even and that would be on a time basis. You are very ill-informed to think that people on benefits have ‘cupboards full of food’, please try being on JSA money, on a work program that demonizes you and treats you with utter contempt, Being on edge of constant threats to your money, which would have a knock on effect to your housing benefit, You are lucky that you are keeping yourself together and working. You are ignorant to think it is the easy life for most of us on state benefits. And you are misguided to call job seekers ‘bone idle’, would you like to do a 40 hour week job search and be pushed pillar to post with constant rejection and humiliation?. Your lucky you are working. you are also fortunate that you completely lack compassion, it must be so blissful.

Your vision of having to live on benefits is somewhat delusional, in that you seem to think it’s an easy life. No doubt you are being influenced by all the propaganda perpetuated by idiotic detrimental slime and his lazy, toffee nosed cronies…who seem to be directing your anger somewhat successfully towards your own kind. It is not other disabled people, or people unable to find work that does not exist you should be angry with, but the perpetrators of the propaganda that influences you. You should be furious with them for allowing your wages to be so low you turn on your own kind. Doubtless ‘to divide is to rule’ is the Tories motto.

This is the beginning of “rationing”; eventually it will be extended to EVERYONE (included the cunts who are cheering on its infliction on the poor) – they just like to conduct “experiments” on the poor first. But, by that time the poor will have “adapted” to it and wont give a fuck when middle-class cunts are urging EVERYONE to UNITE and take on these toff cunts!

what a corrupt facist government, how dare they treat people like machines, sick and disabled not entitled to money but a food card??, that is insane!!, this is while they pump the corrupt bankers with more money, having the London 2012 Olympics was a farce to please the elite, there is no such thing as a deficit, get it?? they hate you, they want us dead they do not give a flying f, as for IDS I know where that is going as if it’s painful enough for sick and disabled people how difficult changes are going to be to them, more nazi orwellian facist controlled state, big brother is watching you!.

People, these rants are all very well. But the fundamental problem is that, sadly, there is a significant group of people who use benefits for drugs and alcohol. At a local level, when I offer to buy homeless people food, rather than give them money ‘for some dinner’, they refuse and swear at me. And sadly, we know why…
Is there a better way of trying to get people to face up to their responsibilities? It’s a big problem

It’s not a significant group, where do you get this from? The economy is crumbling haven’t you notice?
People need benefits because there are no jobs for them or they are sick.

Rhetoric like facing up to responsibilities is a simplistic solution— we have complex social and political problems.

The most dysfunctional neighbours I’ve had have been working people. Bad behaviour and vulgar anti social people are every were theses days, and yes some people do need sorting, but could be sorted by the courts giving proper sentences for anti social crimes.
And I hardly ever get approached by beggars, maybe twice in 5 years; these were eastern European young men. And also I’d like to add that having an alcohol problem doesn’t particularly make one a menace to the neighbourhood or a homeless beggar.
The big problem is the dysfunction of our culture and society, the mismanagement of the economy and corruption.
But I suppose it makes the majority feel better if they can focus the dysfunction onto a minority

There’s a significant amount of people who use their wages for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, so what you going to do, Roger? Give workers coupons too? Let’s not mince our words here. Drug addiction and alcoholism cuts across all backgrounds. It is just more visible in poorer people who don’t have access to expensive private clinics. Also, drug and alcohol are associated with wider social problems. The stuff that the propaganda would have you believe is bollocks. Addiction is complex. I used to work in addictions and a lot of the more problematic users had been sexually abused as children.

I wasnt aware that homeless got any benefits? this is not talking about them this is about real people who are just poor. they need to start by excluding everyone without children if that is why they are suggesting it. this is nothing to do with people on the streets so we will rant because its about us the majority of whom do not have drug or alcohol problems!
The issues the gov is trying to sort out should be sorted out through social services if people dont use their money to feed their kids. I cant afford to smoke or drink but my kids have left home so why should I have these ridiculous restrictions put on my benefit?
You dont have a clue really do you?

Can’t really blame a homeless person wanting to knock themselves into oblivion? What an awful situation to be in. And there will a lot more for Roger to “step over on the way out of the opera” if IBS and his fellow Nazis get there way.

There is an answer – take the people abusing drugs n alcohol and put them in proper half way houses, get them properly dry, introduce them to coping mechanisms, a little voluntary job while they learn coping skills, further education to retrain them then hopefully jobs.

I am an addictions counsellor fully trained and I work as a vounteer and what I see over and over and over is a complete lack of PROPER support for these ppl.

A home detox is NOT good enough, nor is 5days in a hospital they need 1 to 2yrs to fully recover and instead of pumping money into proper places to treat these people no they are just gona turn their backs on them.

As soon as they withhold money for alcohol there will be a lot of deaths from Ppl who are physically addicted as their bodies go into shock, they suffer convulsions, fits and even brain damage – by which point they will need state care forever.

Theft and burglary will go through the roof while druggies try to steal and sell for their fix, prostitution will rise, all the negatives will be brought to a massive head.

The government are taking it out on the wrong people in the wrong ways and its not safe what they are planning.

People who need help the most are going to be the ones that suffer the most and they are already vulnerable.

Drug addiction and alcoholism are both illnesses yes self induced illness but they are not or where not scum all of the time and many still are not they are just in very bad situations and see no way out.

Proper half way houses with resident support, counsellors etc are the best way to help these people – change the law so that they have a right to send them to a dry house by all means but why punish the whole for the acts of the few ?

i remember being on uniform vouchers under thatcher and it is one of the most embarrassing and degrading things to do, i had to go to M&S the most expensive shop then and had to count out the vouchers to the amount while other customers were sighing and tutting behind me. i am a disabled single mum now and ,like most, spend my benefits responsibly,this then goes back into the economy as spend and tax i am therefore not a drain. if this goes ahead we will spend less and small village shops will go out of business,in turn this costs more in lost revenue and the cost of implementing the scheme. its is a farce and just another way for these t*****s to make our lives worse.

They have no right! How dare they? I would no longer feel like it was my money! My bills are paid how could you pay bills if your money no longer goes into your bank account?
I would 100% end my life if this happened. I would find this move far more hideous than any they’ve had so far, this is worse than workfare, the WCA and all the other shit they’ve flung at us.
My blood would be on their hands. And I would make sure they were blamed directly I would send my suicide note to all the newspapers and make sure it was next to me when I am found. FUCKING TORY C**TS

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